STATCOUNTER

Not A Good Idea

When you see a claim that states “longest lasting,” and there are no obvious asterisks, even cynical shoppers like me tend to believe the assertion. Which is why Energizer batteries have received my annual Pinocchio award.

In a category that fights tooth and nail to convince consumers their products last the longest, they often end up with parity claims that they hope will sound like evidence of superiority. Such as, no other battery lasts longer. Or they compare their alkaline batteries to heavy-duty batteries. Or they put in a disclaimer about when used in toys, or flashlights, or games.

But I have never seen the duplicity evidenced by this ad, which clearly and flatly claims that it is their longest-lasting alkaline battery. Which may indeed be the case, but it turns out that they are not actually talking about how long the battery will last in terms of the use you will get out of it. They mean that it will hold its power longer while inactive in storage. So ten years from now, assuming you can locate them, they will provide power when you actually use them. How much power? No idea. After all, they say “our” longest lasting battery. Doesn’t even mean that others won’t outlast it, even in storage.

So, basically, their report of longest lasting has nothing to do with how long the battery will actually last when you use it.

We will announce the winner of this year’s headline contest next Monday, March 9. And, as we have every year in the past, we will give full credit to the winning entry, within the limits of protecting his/her privacy.

This, of course, as it should be; create something and you should get recognition for it. It is clearly and obviously the right thing to do. Which is why I do not understand why this ad for Cadillac has a blatant lack of accreditation for the quote that forms the entire ad. Even reading just the first few lines of this speech by Theodore Roosevelt, as you can see in this link to Wikipedia, shows where the words originally came from (heck, it is often referred to as “The Man in the Arena”:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

At first I thought, and hoped, that the mouse type running vertically on the right side was giving credit to the source. But no, it was just a copyright line for General Motors.

When the Dollar Shave Club first arrived in 2012, the video introducing it went viral, with over 1 million views in the first four days. It starred the company’s CEO Michael Dubin, a former digital marketing biggie at Sports Illustrated.

Now they’ve introduced four new spots, each co-written by Dubin. And though I am indeed a Shave Club Member in good standing, these spots are nowhere in the same class as the introductory commercial. The situations and the humor is forced, and while Dubin says they are rooted in truth, they are just rooted in being coarse, obvious and grating.

Humor of course, is highly subjective, as is, I guess, the quality of the blades and the closeness of the shave. And though I have no complaints about the product—which is more important than the packaging or the commercials—I wish the spots were better.

Take a look at one below, and if you think a shopper being tasered for no real reason is funny, then you probably would have enjoyed all the bad puns about close calls, smooth efforts and don’t be in a lather that I refused to use.

There are some ads that actually seem to have an idea in them. For about two seconds. Then you realize that they are too often in the “insert your product here” school of generic advertising.

As in the headline: "It’s a tough world out there.” Followed by, well, almost anything you want. It’s a tough world out there, so you need, better tires or stronger locks or increased insurance or a better breakfast, and so on.

Which is the problem with the ad above. The headline, “You Took A Big Risk Starting A Company,” could be followed by almost anything. And in this case (pun not intended) the fortunate product that provides peace of mind, is…no, not the fancy car that dominates the visual space. Rather it is a laptop case. (Not even the laptop itself!) So the ad reads: “You Took A Big Risk Starting A Company. Choosing a laptop case shouldn’t be one of them.”

Now, putting aside the construction of the sentence (what the heck does “them” refer to?) how pompous and overstated does asserting that a laptop case will alleviate major risks for your start up?

To the extent that you can fill in another product name in your ad, it weakens your brand communication. Though often it can’t be helped, and can be successful (Just Do It) the more the ad’s idea comes out of your product’s benefits, the better it will be.

So let’s say you are selling mouthwash. It is a very effective product, but it gets its strength from being very hot and spicy. It would probably be a bad idea if you ran ads that said, well, it’s not as burning as jalapeno peppers, or as fiery as Sriracha sauce.

It is one thing to try to make a positive out of a negative, but a sense of proportion is probably required. Go too far, and you’re just making more of a negative out of what is already a negative.

Which is what I think IKEA is doing with its series of ads for impossible to assemble furniture. At first glance, you may not even get the joke. Though the designs feature Escher-like impossible furniture, it is not immediately that obvious to the casual viewer. It actually looks simply like badly assembled furniture.

Worse, though, is that while they think they are making their message a plug for their assembly service, I think all they are doing is pointing out how difficult it can be to assemble. I do not think most people will respond with, “Oh, I will let them put it together for me,” so much as, “Yeah, that’s why I don’t buy their stuff.”

By reinforcing this major negative, they are kicking themselves right in their hex wrenches.

Above is an image I shot on the way to work. I was flabbergasted, or whatever today’s version of that word is, that any brand would spend all that money without actually saying anything.

The brand identifier was in the small red horizontal space on the top left. I covered up the name to protect the guilty. I am willing to bet that based on this poster, you can’t guess the brand. And I would double down that you couldn’t even guess the category.

Yes, a phone company might be a good guess, based on the only copy in the ad, “Life’s better when we’re connected.” But it would be wrong.

And it’s not an ad for a genealogy website, leash manufacturer, or duct tape.

Point is, a cliché image and a non-relevant headline is a big waste of your time, money and creativity.

For the most part, Staples does a really good job with its programs. Free next day delivery with only a $50.00 minimum. Or free shipping with no minimum, if you order online. Plus 5% back in rewards. Plus lots of great “buy this item and get back the entire price in Staples rewards.”

So when they mess up, it is so out of character it bears mentioning. As you can see from the coupon above, the deal was a free pack of markers. And yes, it does indeed point out that it is valid only while supplies last. But it is still very disappointing when you go to three different Staples locations, some more than once, only to be told, “Sorry we have none left. And we don’t do rain checks for the weekly deals.”

Each of the salespeople I spoke to did suggest that if I had come in a day before there were plenty of the markers. Or if I could return in a few days, they were expecting a big shipment. Which I did, and no, they still didn’t have any.

Now, I am not suggesting any skullduggery. Nor am I suggesting that anyone who actually uses a word like “skullduggery” deserves free anythings. But I am suggesting that a cynical New Yorker would have serious questions about this offer. After all, what is to prevent Staples from offering a free computer, and then saying sorry, we just ran out, and there are no rain checks. Well, there are laws about this type of thing, but I’m just saying…

In the spirit of trying to be helpful, maybe Staples should rethink their free offers if they get slammed and run out so often. Perhaps they should simply have more of the items on hand. Perhaps they should offer rain checks, even if good for only a limited time. Maybe instead of free, they should charge a dollar; still a good deal for the customer and this would reduce their exposure and allow them to increase the inventory on hand.

I am sure Staples can think of many more ways to make promotions like this be more effective and not exasperate their customers. But what about you? Do you do a good job of honoring your offers, or do you take sanctuary behind the small print? The point, after all, is to have satisfied, happy customers. Which you will not get if they feel the slightest bit mistreated, fairly or not.

A quiz can indeed help get readers involved in an ad. But, without overstating it, this particular one has to be one of the silliest ideas I have seen in quite a while.

Cottonelle is actually asking you to compare what you clean your car with to what your clean your bottom with. And they suggest that if you use cloth and water to clean your car, you should therefore use their moist wipes on your butt.

Now forget for the moment that they are featuring a prominent visual of their toilet paper in the ad, which I guess we are supposed to ignore, since they are not suggesting that you should clean your car with tissue paper.

And also forget that the choices they list for cleaning your car include a bowling ball. Because I am sure the creators of this ad are still giggling over how funny that thought is.

And perhaps forget that people often use sponges to clean their car, rather than using a cloth. Though some do use steel wool pads on the car’s tires, if Cottonelle would like to apply that analogy.

The main question is why they felt the necessity of any comparison between cleaning your body and cleaning a car. I don’t see the logic, or the humor. Feel free, of course, to disagree. But if you create an ad with a quiz in it, perhaps make sure that the answers to your test are actually relevant to your product. And in good taste. And, if you use humor, well, make it actually funny.

Actually, the ad ran last week. But, to quote Stuart Elliott, advertising columnist at The New York Times, “It would have appealed more to viewers during the Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan or Clinton administrations.”

OK, Stuart was referring to his opinion of most of last Sunday’s Super Bowl commercials. But he could just as easily have been referring to the ad above.

The headline is a strong contender for silliest of the year award. As is the thought that the reader actually believes the premise, and has thanked Gillette for this important benefit. Which is the only reason for the “Thank you” in the headline. And leave us not even try to figure out the ancient decade in which the photograph might have caught someone’s attention.

Now, there is an idea hidden in the lower left corner; the thought of less irritation, even on sensitive skin, might be the basis of an ad. But no one involved with the creation of this advertisement seemed to want to actually convince anyone of anything.